Penalty Flags For Game Rowdies

October 17, 1985|The Morning Call

In Great Britain it's called "rowdyism" or "hooliganism." The unfortunate, and often tragic, interruption of sports events by mindless "fans" hellbent on creating a disturbance or worse, is a sad fact of life on the soccer pitches of that nation. It hit closer to home recently when a mild fracas broke out on a football field in Carbon County.

Unfortunately, the drive to fix blame has collided with the obvious need to punish and prevent - punish those responsible for turning what should have been no more than a tough, hard-hitting football game into a minor brawl, and prevent its happening again. Both schools, to their credit, have come down hard on the preventive side of the question. The Weatherly School Board voted unanimously to impose a total fan restriction on any games, not just football, with Jim Thorpe. Later the Jim Thorpe board voted to throw the Thorpe- Weatherly football rivalry for a two-year loss - no more games until 1987. Tough penalties were listed by both districts for overzealous fans who try an end run against the strictures.

Jim Thorpe schools superintendent Thomas Sanguiliano, however, has assessed a major penalty . . . on the officials monitoring that strife-ridden football game. Sanguiliano, who viewed game films, accused the "zebras" of allowing the game to get out of hand. "With . . . seven officials working the game, yellow penalty flags should have been flying so fast and furious it should have looked like a yellow snow storm," he told his school board. "This didn't happen and we all know the end result."

Let's look a little closer when waving the finger of blame. That's a little like blaming the policeman for a riot. He should have stopped it and didn't. What ever happened to the theory that we as individuals are responsible for what we do and how we behave, be it positive or negative? What about the fired-up football players who were making the late hits, piling on, throwing the illegal blocks that the superintendent mentioned in his statement to the board? What about that fan who emerged from the stands to grab a Jim Thorpe player by the face mask? Has that person been identified and prosecuted? Has selective punishment been abolished in favor of generalized punishment - that is, convicting everyone for the sins of the few?

Swiftly punishing and correcting the behavior and attitudes of those actually responsible for such a confrontation, and, perhaps, making an example of them, is the honest way to deal with such incidents.